Two toast racks. One silver and the other silverplate. The sterling silver one was bought last Sunday and the other I have had for ten years.

Thoroughly useless objects these days I suppose. These ones took my eye because of their shape.

I've been aware of the designs of Christopher Dresser for some time and I know that he created some toast racks for Hukin & Heath and James Dixon and Sons. One of them has a design based on triangles. He designed for a number of companies. In more than a way, I see him as the father of modern industrial design.

I don't think these are Dresser designs. But I believe they were influenced by his innovative ideas, for sure.

The larger one is the sterling silver item. The triangles are graduated in height, it has a loop handle and four triangular based feet with a rounded end. The triangles sit on a belt buckle base. The plated version has a belt buckle base and bun feet with a triangular handle.

The plated version is marked WH&SBP/22069.

It was made by William Hutton & Sons of Sheffield England. The mark suggests a date earlier than 1900 when they added some crossed arrows to the mark.

The sterling silver one has S.I.Ld, Lion passant, italic 'u' for 1894 and the Birmingham anchor mark.

The makers were Stokes and Ireland Ltd. They registered their mark in 1892. They worked in Chester too and were still manufacturing silver in the 1960's.

These days Alessi in Italy have taken to reproducing some of the designs of Dr. Christopher Dresser (b Glasgow, 4 July 1834; d Mulhouse, Alsace, 24 Nov 1904).

vetraio50, 5 years agoHi Phil! I've just had a look at it and it from the same Melbourne maker as mine. It's Phoenix. If I were selling it at a fair that would be the price I'd be pitching it at. Kangaroos, kookaburras are equally popular here; there would probably be an emu version as well. The price is full retail and Postage free from Israel.
Is it not strange how items can move around the globe?
One route is Perth in Western Australia to South Africa for silver items. We get and have had a long trade with South Africans across the Indian Ocean. In my mind from South Africa to Israel is a natural step. We have dealers from London who come here looking for South African stuff. Africa is a growing market for the cognoscenti, it seems.

lovedecanters, 4 years agoI pulled out my Dresser books and I can similar but not the same as these and I can't find that he did work for these companies either. You could say they are dirty rip-offs, but actually they are very nice.
If you don't have it you might want to look out for the Christie's catalogue for the Harry Lyons Collection from 19th Oct 2004, as it makes a good reference in itself.

vetraio50, 4 years agoMany thanks lovedecanters. I agree that it's probably a rip-off. I just see them as clever pieces of design influenced by what Dresser was doing.